The Experiment

List Price: $29.99 Discount Price: $18.99

Features:

• Explore every corner of the eerie dilapidated ship scouting the path.
• Unlock a powerful story revealed through vivid flashbacks and shocking plot twists.
• Guide Lea's actions while confined in the locked operations room, to determine the fate of both characters.
• Characters possess independent attitudes, notions and fears -- build trust with them to overcome human and environmental challenges.
• Employ high-tech surveillance equipment to solve ingenious puzzles - Ship intranets, 3D rotation cameras, light intensifiers, heat detectors, thermal vision and more

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

Good games... after two fists full of hair pulled out [Posted on 2008-02-26]
This game is definitely different than your typical collect your items, point and click adventure game. It tries to bring something new to the table. However, whether that "new" makes a good game or not, it's probably going to depend your patience level.

The game is somewhat original, has good writing, and its story is definitely mysterious enough to give you an urge of continue playing; so you can find out what this is all about (since, you don't even have a clue who the protagonist is at the beginning). There's also a lot of details to the game, I don't mean graphically (although they are pretty good), but about its characters and the technical enviroment the game takes place in; making it believable and interesting.

With all the good things said, there is one BIG problem. Which is the "new" I mentioned initially. "The Experiment" plays very differently than anything else we are use to; not just adventure games, but games in general.

First of all, Lea, the main charater you see in the game is not you (the protagonist). Your character commands her behind video cameras by utilising the enviroment around Lea. Confused? Or maybe even more interested? Yeah, that's pretty much going to decide whether you are going to like this game or not.

If you are interested behind the idea of playing almost like a voyeur, then you'll probably overlook the painful control scheme. The basic idea is that you look at Lea through the video cameras, and you tell her where to go, or what to do, by start operating on something around her; for example, the lights. As you progress in the game, you will learn more system functions in the compound that the game takes place in, therefore giving you greater control of the mechanical environment. Sounds fun? Right. Except the game makers didn't include an easy interface. There's too many controls and sub-controls, making the learning curve ridiculous. The camera angels don't help things either. You will struggle at times to choose the right view to see what Lea is doing, and where she should go next.

I know I probably wrote more about the control scheme than the actual contain within the game, but that's really what makes "The Experiment" unique. But it is an aquired taste. You will either enjoy the game due to this uniqueness, or hate it because of it.

Cool sophisticated but with a few minor flaws [Posted on 2008-03-23]
Cool and so clever in many ways, but with a few flaws.
The Good. - Very clever interface, deeply immersive interesting interactive world. Nice realistic feel. Quite good deep puzzles. The science ship makes a cool interesting environment.
The Bad. Can be frustrating. Still mostly not that difficult. Puzzles could be deeper still. A few minor bugs - get caught in doors, one or two crashes (in same place). Puzzles can be somewhat rigid in order structure forcing you to wonder back and forth etc - but this is a very minor problem.
Overall I like this game a lot - very good.

Better for real puzzle-oriented folk [Posted on 2008-05-03]
I LOVE the concept -- that your PC is really part of the game. But for my taste there's too much moving windows around, and waiting for wots-her-name to move about. And the voice acting is pretty bad. I'm probably too much action-oriented -- more puzzle-loving players might love it. I'd put it somewhere between Tomb Raider 1 and Rhem for action.

I wish I could play it! [Posted on 2008-05-07]
I read all the great reviews about this game and purchased it, however, the mouse is so sluggish while the game is going that I can't even use it. I looked up this game on several forums and soon found out that I'm definitely not the only one with this problem. The answer I found was that people with this problem are told to wait for a 'patch' to fix the mouse issue. I just wish that I hadn't paid for a game I cannot play.

I also wish I could play this game [Posted on 2008-07-04]
The game would not play. After investigating on the company website I found my video card was not sufficient even though it met the requirements stated on the box. Check company website to see if your card will work.

Click here for more details and discount information...